BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha Government has decided to seek inclusion of Kalahandi as one of the worst affected districts by Left Wing Extremism (LWE).
Currently, Malkangiri and Koraput are among the 34 worst LWE-affected districts of the country. Given the surge in Maoist violence in Kalahandi, the State has decided to pitch in for its inclusion in the list.
At a high-level meeting here on Wednesday, the Government also decided that three more districts should be included under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) scheme. Apart from the existing 19 districts, the meeting chaired by Chief Secretary AP Padhi agreed on inclusion of Angul, Boudh and Sonepur.
Wednesday's meet was held to chalk out plans and demands for the May 8 national meeting of 10 Maoist-affected States which would be chaired by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in wake of the massacre of 25 CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh last month.
While bolstering presence of security forces in Odisha to take on Maoists remains top on the agenda of the State Government, it has also decided to seek funds for security forces under the SRE scheme which presently covers Gajapati, Ganjam, Keonjhar, Koraput, Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj, Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Sambalpur, Sundargarh, Nayagarh, Kandhamal, Deogarh, Jajpur, Dhenkanal, Kalahandi, Nuapada, Bargarh and Balangir.
The meeting decided to seek release of the pending financial assistance under SRE scheme which amounts to `279 crore. Between 2005-06, the Central share of `215 crore has not been released whereas the sanction of `64 crore for the financial year 2016-17 is yet to be allocated to the State.
The State will also seek deployment of another four battalions of Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) for reinforcing its anti-Naxal strength. Odisha has been sanctioned 16 battalions force so far.
Since communication is a major handicap in LWE-affected areas, the demand for more number of powerful mobile towers is also on the list of demands. Although there are 253 mobile towers in the worst affected districts, poor bandwidth of Internet has proved to be a great bottleneck.
While national service provider BSNL has been asked to improve its services, the Government will press for more towers to cover the left-out areas. Similarly, revival of Chitrakonda-Janbai and Govindpali-Mahuapadar road projects will be placed before the Centre.
The meeting, attended by Home Secretary Asit Kumar Tripathy, DGP KB Singh, RD Secretary Bishnupada Sethi, Works Secretary Nalinikanta Pradhan and Special Secretary to Home Department Lalit Das, also discussed infrastructure requirement for BSF headquarters in the State.